This week we’re joined by Northern California Director for High Speed Rail Boris Lipkin and Streetsblog San Francisco Editor Roger Rudick to discuss high speed rail’s progress in California. Lipkin discusses what’s next for this system, its funding, and possible station design, while Rudick pushes back on recent negative media on this age of mistrust of presidency.
For those of you who just need to read the conversation, click here (but be forewarned: there could also be typos). Should you want an excerpted version of the spirited conversation, read the edited transcript below the audio player.
Jeff Wood: Boris, I imagine it’s been frustrating to see numerous politicians, say within the Central Valley, who probably have read the Latest York Times article and form of use it as a prop to disclaim funding. And it’s probably been frustrating also to observe numerous the discussions around these Senate bills which were passed. So I’m wondering what your feelings are when there’s all this discussion that we’re supposedly having a tough time paying for it, but then numerous the funding from national level sources and other sources is difficult to come back by due to among the things which can be written, or possibly simply because of among the quote unquote biases that Congress critters have.
Boris Lipkin: I believe the funding picture is interesting because there’s form of the surface world view of it after which there’s the, , project view. And sure, I’d like to live in an environment which another countries have, where the population or the parliament approves the project, the project fully funded after which it’s just all about executing the project. That’s not the world that we live in.
And so California put the thought before the voters in 2008 and said, “Voters of California, do you would like us to start out constructing a high-speed rail system? And here’s what it can generally seem like. Here’s where it’ll generally go. Here’s the places it’ll connect.” And that bond measure included a funding that will be one-fifth of the associated fee on the time. And it said, “Should you wanna actually spend this money on construction, which we wish you to do, then you have got to seek out matching funds some place else.” And at that time there was no nowhere else. And voters said yes.
But what you’ve seen within the last decade that I’ve worked on this system is every few years there’s a funding milestone. So first we had, , Prop 1A, then we got federal funds to match that and start construction. Then just a few years later, we got cap-and-trade funds. That was form of our first, , long-term funding source from the state. Then the cap-and-trade program got prolonged, giving us an additional runway on those funds.
We then began to see, , the brand new funding sources coming into play with the federal government out of the bipartisan infrastructure law. And we’re very enthusiastic about what that may bring. Just this last 12 months within the legislature we had the appropriation of the remaining Prop 1A funds, which provides us the subsequent boost. And albeit that’s what we’ve seen with large infrastructure projects within the U.S. — we do these items in blocks and we discover the funds to do the subsequent piece and do the subsequent piece and do the subsequent piece. And eventually you have got a complete system.
Now would it not be higher if we did it the best way that many other countries have done it, which is, , principally fund the entire thing abruptly? Sure. But that’s never been the truth.
And so we live on the planet that we now have where we actually see the importance of leveraging the state funds that we now have. And we’re very lucky to have strong support inside the state. And albeit, , now clear direction when it comes to our political leadership of how they desired to see this system advanced. After which leveraging that with latest federal funding opportunities. The bipartisan infrastructure law is a big opportunity that hasn’t existed within the last decade plus. And so we’re actually excited to see those programs on the federal level. After which even on the regional level, , we now have great examples of partnerships, all the things from Caltrain electrification where we’re providing a couple of third of the funding and others are coming in with the remainder of it to get that line electrified.
We have now the Metropolitan Transportation Commission within the Bay Area principally saying that bringing high-speed is a regional priority for discretionary funds is an element of their long-range plan. And really, these are the sorts of things that it’ll take for this system to come back about. And , I believe we’ll proceed to see the pattern of moving forward and pursuing funding from all sources. And this system continues to grow and gets implemented and the constructing blocks come together.
So to me, the funding picture is frankly brighter in sitting here in 2022 than it’s been in a minimum of the last five, six, seven years on this system.
And I believe the country’s coming along. And so I’m, I’m very optimistic.
This week we’re joined by Northern California Director for High Speed Rail Boris Lipkin and Streetsblog San Francisco Editor Roger Rudick to discuss high speed rail’s progress in California. Lipkin discusses what’s next for this system, its funding, and possible station design, while Rudick pushes back on recent negative media on this age of mistrust of presidency.
For those of you who just need to read the conversation, click here (but be forewarned: there could also be typos). Should you want an excerpted version of the spirited conversation, read the edited transcript below the audio player.
Jeff Wood: Boris, I imagine it’s been frustrating to see numerous politicians, say within the Central Valley, who probably have read the Latest York Times article and form of use it as a prop to disclaim funding. And it’s probably been frustrating also to observe numerous the discussions around these Senate bills which were passed. So I’m wondering what your feelings are when there’s all this discussion that we’re supposedly having a tough time paying for it, but then numerous the funding from national level sources and other sources is difficult to come back by due to among the things which can be written, or possibly simply because of among the quote unquote biases that Congress critters have.
Boris Lipkin: I believe the funding picture is interesting because there’s form of the surface world view of it after which there’s the, , project view. And sure, I’d like to live in an environment which another countries have, where the population or the parliament approves the project, the project fully funded after which it’s just all about executing the project. That’s not the world that we live in.
And so California put the thought before the voters in 2008 and said, “Voters of California, do you would like us to start out constructing a high-speed rail system? And here’s what it can generally seem like. Here’s where it’ll generally go. Here’s the places it’ll connect.” And that bond measure included a funding that will be one-fifth of the associated fee on the time. And it said, “Should you wanna actually spend this money on construction, which we wish you to do, then you have got to seek out matching funds some place else.” And at that time there was no nowhere else. And voters said yes.
But what you’ve seen within the last decade that I’ve worked on this system is every few years there’s a funding milestone. So first we had, , Prop 1A, then we got federal funds to match that and start construction. Then just a few years later, we got cap-and-trade funds. That was form of our first, , long-term funding source from the state. Then the cap-and-trade program got prolonged, giving us an additional runway on those funds.
We then began to see, , the brand new funding sources coming into play with the federal government out of the bipartisan infrastructure law. And we’re very enthusiastic about what that may bring. Just this last 12 months within the legislature we had the appropriation of the remaining Prop 1A funds, which provides us the subsequent boost. And albeit that’s what we’ve seen with large infrastructure projects within the U.S. — we do these items in blocks and we discover the funds to do the subsequent piece and do the subsequent piece and do the subsequent piece. And eventually you have got a complete system.
Now would it not be higher if we did it the best way that many other countries have done it, which is, , principally fund the entire thing abruptly? Sure. But that’s never been the truth.
And so we live on the planet that we now have where we actually see the importance of leveraging the state funds that we now have. And we’re very lucky to have strong support inside the state. And albeit, , now clear direction when it comes to our political leadership of how they desired to see this system advanced. After which leveraging that with latest federal funding opportunities. The bipartisan infrastructure law is a big opportunity that hasn’t existed within the last decade plus. And so we’re actually excited to see those programs on the federal level. After which even on the regional level, , we now have great examples of partnerships, all the things from Caltrain electrification where we’re providing a couple of third of the funding and others are coming in with the remainder of it to get that line electrified.
We have now the Metropolitan Transportation Commission within the Bay Area principally saying that bringing high-speed is a regional priority for discretionary funds is an element of their long-range plan. And really, these are the sorts of things that it’ll take for this system to come back about. And , I believe we’ll proceed to see the pattern of moving forward and pursuing funding from all sources. And this system continues to grow and gets implemented and the constructing blocks come together.
So to me, the funding picture is frankly brighter in sitting here in 2022 than it’s been in a minimum of the last five, six, seven years on this system.
And I believe the country’s coming along. And so I’m, I’m very optimistic.
